Charles Bukowski Quotes

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.

The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it.

I like women who haven’t lived with too many men. I don’t expect virginity but I simply prefer women who haven’t been rubbed raw by experience. There is a quality about women who choose men sparingly; it appears in their walk in their eyes in their laughter and in their gentle hearts. Women who have had too many men seem to choose the next one out of revenge rather than with feeling. When you play the field selfishly everything works against you: one can’t insist on love or demand affection. You’re finally left with whatever you have been willing to give which often is: nothing.

Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.

There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little.

Everything was a trap: women, drugs, whiskey, wine, scotch, beer – even beer – cigars, and cigarettes. Traps: Work or no work. Traps: Artistry or no artistry; everything sucked you into some spiderweb. I disdained the use of the needle for the same reason that I disdained some so-called beautiful women – the price was far beyond the measure of the worth. I didn’t want to hustle that hard.

Well, people got attatched. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attatched to the other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder, and Monday morning hangovers.

I was laying in bed one night and I thought ‘I’ll just quit – to hell with it.’ And another little voice inside me said ‘Don’t quit – save that tiny little ember of spark.’ And never give them that spark because as long as you have that spark, you can start the greatest fire again.

Human relationships didn’t work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death–in a cesspool.

The streets were full of insane & dull people. Most of them lived in nice houses and didn’t seem to work, and you wondered how they did it.